A Legacy to Leave Behind

Since we're coming up on the year anniversary of Mr. E's thesis film Ganas (and his graduation!) I thought it'd be fun to reminisce about leaving our mark on Dodge College.

 

 Don't tell my mother, but we definitely vandalized the theater.

We were sitting in one of the backrows during a screening or a class or some such, holding hands and enjoying each others company far more than we were enjoying what was onstage, when I realized the tiny gold plate on the arm rest was loose.

Inspiration struck and I stuffed that sucker in my purse.

A few weeks later we snuck in as a family to glue it back into place- so really we were maintaining the integrity of the venue, right? We squeezed our bewildered pup into my purse (she's half chihuahua, after all, she should be right at home) and walked in like we owned the place.

A phone flashlight and a bottle of craft glue later we were left with this. A legacy for future students to find and enjoy.

LAssumptions

There are a lot of assumptions about LA- that it's big and dirty and dangerous. That it's the city of dreams but no one tells you that a lot of the dreams are broken, discarded in the struggle to get by. That you don't know your neighbors and the traffic is so awful you basically have to learn a new language in order to converse with a native.

While some of these things may be true, it's also a city of opportunity if you play your cards right. It's a city that doesn't ever stop GOING and will go on without you just fine if you choose to sit down and wallow, but it still beckons and teases you with hope while you're down.

Yes, we have friends that get flashed as they park their car, the friends who work two jobs to get by, the friends who turn around and see Amy Adams at the Starbucks counter behind them or Ginnifer Goodwin at the gym. But these are all just facets of what it's like to live in this city.

We can be found pretty much at this exact spot every other weekend.

 Then there are our friends who are living the LA experience, Hollywood-style. Our friends who have converted a loft space in the Fashion District into a four bedroom apartment with roof access to a view only seen in movies or GTAV. Their alleyways are littered with unmentionables at any time of day and they use shopping carts to carry the groceries up the freight elevator. They decorate with odds and ends from sets they've worked on and giant framed posters of the movies that inspire them. Day-playing, for them, isn't something to dabble in, it's a necessity and they're always looking for work to pay the bills (of which, their parking is astronomical!).

I am incredibly grateful that I'm able to live with Mr. E in Burbank along the outskirts of LA. We visit and do laundry and grab a drink at the local brewery, play dirty card games and debate about director's intentions or set politics but at the end of the night we pack ourselves up and go home. We get to dip our tippy-toes in that swirling water and congratulate ourselves on getting wet without ever really feeling the current beneath us. The exposure is on our terms all the way up until it's not- until you see the bum squatting behind the tree and you realize that this city is just a big old murky puddle with a pretty sunset.

Pros and Cons

I know this is a lot of home-related posting- but all of my craft projects are packed away! Besides, cooking and baking is more in the manner of "eat what's quick" lately, so bear with me.

After being in the new house for a month and some change, it's time to total the tally marks in favor and against this new apartment.

The stove clock is broken. We hit one o'clock four times a day.

This is actually dinner, guys.

There is only one bathroom. We might have cockroaches. But they're actually tiny cockroaches, only one at a time and only in the bathtub. They sort of look like Wall-E's buddy until they're squished. The steam from our shower sets off the fire alarm. There's a bathtub. With a seat. Aaaaand a scum ring I'll have to clean once a week.

Air conditioning.

Our drawers are too tiny for dividers. The hot water goes from "meh" to "sixteenth degree burns" in .6 seconds.

There is no room for our grill.

Our stuff is actually in three different places.

This is how I figured out my gallery wall....

It costs $11.50 to do all of our laundry for two weeks.

I am getting mad crazy organizing done, yo. Remember, this is what it looked like when we moved in!

 I love it, but now that the house is organized and put away, let's see about that job, shall we?

Dilemma Solved

Ask and ye shall receive.

A while ago I posted my decorating dilemma: how to hang my gallery wall in our new bedroom. After a few nights of rearranging and some very well-timed Pinterest pins (thanks, Jenny!), we slapped all those suckers on the wall!

No frames were harmed in the process, though our pride might be bruised.

I'm more of a "hang it then fix it later" type of gal, but this drives Mr. E batty. So to compromise I traced all of our frames onto packing paper and taped them to the wall so we could move them around as we pleased. No holes, no spackle, less mess.

The arrangement we decided to go with

Then, when you want to hang, add a little dab of toothpaste to the back of the frame where the nail should go, level and press against the wall. You get a dab of paste right where you need to hammer the nail with no extra holes.

That little blue dot is toothpaste

After a while I got a little toothpaste happy- where I was putting toothpaste willy-nilly on frames that actually had hangers...

But they're all finally up and frames aren't littering the floor anymore, so we're all good. Phew.

It's all about utilizing your space wisely in such a small apartment, so the opposite wall looks a little something like this...

Now if only it wasn't so freaking hot.

I Need Help

This hasn't been the best month for me- and that's hard for me to say. I'm a mover and shaker; I make things happen; I pull up my big-girl panties and get to work and I really really don't like to listen to pity parties, but I seem to be throwing myself the biggest one ever.

Moving has been such a blessing for us. I was so scared to uproot ourselves and change our lives by moving to the city. I planned and postulated, trying to prepare myself for each possible pitfall. We scoped out neighborhoods months before we actually needed to move, just so I could see what Burbank was like. I had doubts even when we were signing the lease, but as soon as we stepped outside and saw the rain haphazardly misting around us, I knew it was the right decision.

Rain, in the summer, in Los Angeles. It was my sign.

And when the car broke down on Mr. E's first day at work- a job where he would be required to drive all over God's green earth- I had my doubts again.  We didn't have the money to fix our clunker and we didn't have the money for a new car. I was already beside myself preparing for our move by myself- packing and storing and donating and organizing while Mr. E was away. I thought for sure this was the straw to break my back. Mr. E and his brothers and his father came through- researching deals and plans and before I knew it, we were being handed keys to a new car.

That's when the rain started falling to calm my heart.

I've sat in this house for a month now, unpacking and organizing and re-assessing. Sure, our stuff is technically in three places at once, and we fit now despite the doubts. It's cozy and welcoming, just the way I wanted it. I split my days in half: the first half on the computer looking for jobs and the second is cleaning and sorting while I play catch-up on TV shows Mr. E would never watch with me. I have all the time in the world and yet I feel like I have no time at all because I should be working working working and all I'm really doing is sitting like a bump on a log. I'm productive but not productive enough. I need help to see past this season of waiting, this period of uncertainty.

Waiting is not my strong suit.

Some Things Stay the Same

I'm not really sure where I stand in terms of where I belong on the map. I don't feel like I can claim San Diego as my "hometown", but it's the city (and suburbs) that I'm the most familiar: the malls I camped out at for Black Friday, the freeways I learned to drive on, the hills and the beaches I loved. I wasn't a big city explorer and most days I'm still not. Downtown San Diego gave me the heebie-jeebies (that's a technical term) and it hasn't gotten better from there.

Moving to Burbank was a big jump for me. I've lived my whole life on military bases, in military housing, or in suburbs- right next to police stations and I used to walk everywhere because I felt safe enough to do so. The prospect of moving downtown somewhere was terrifying- what if I get mugged? What if I get jumped? What if I get held up or held down or run over?

And then we actually moved.

And it wasn't so bad. Yes, there are alleys everywhere and sometimes you hear arguments in the underground parking garages or catch shadowed individuals in the alley extinguishing a smoke, but there are humongous trees lining the streets and beautiful architecture and the constant bustle of people just sidewalks away.

I'm still learning to like the city. Every so often I find something that lessens the worry that much more: a new route to walk Ripley reveals a gorgeous church. A new restaurant. A library.

There is literally nothing more relaxing than to walk inside of a library. I'm the kind of girl who will walk out of the building with a kink in my neck and a purse weighed down with musty hardbacks. There were definitely points in my college career when I would climb to the 7th floor (popular fiction) and just. sit. All of the anxiety and the worry and the stress stopped at the door.

That's actually Mr. E and myself there...

I haven't changed one bit. The anxiety and cabin fever from sitting at home and applying for jobs was too much today but as soon as I walked through those sliding doors and into the air conditioning the world was alright again.

The smell was the same: dry and slightly musty. Of the bottom of backpacks and the first turned page.
The lighting was the same: overhead fluorescents reflecting off of plastic jacketed books.
The sound was the same: rustling pants, clacking keyboards and a tense murmur anticipating the accompanying shush.

After signing up and checking out, I walked home with a new outlook on the neighborhood: the library is only 7 minutes away by foot. Perfect.

Decorating Dilemma

I'm reaching the end of my rope but, sadly, NOT the end of my frames. We have two huge empty walls in the bedroom and so many frames and pictures and art pieces I don't know what to put up and what to store.

I really liked the frames I had above the couch in the last house- hollow gray and white frames that graced our the altar at our wedding. It's just that sort of modern touch with sentimental value that I'm crazy about, but we have so many frames to choose from I am a little overwhelmed.

In an effort not to create a shotgun effect on the wall, I used the packing paper we had left over from moving to trace the frames and added the color in the middle- so I could eyeball my placements.

These are the two displays I have so far, but I'm open to suggestions! What do you think?

A little long on the wall and Mr. E wasn't crazy about the line.

Shorter on the wall and a little more compact, but the two sides mesh better.

Nails and Colgate Regular Paste

There's a ritual that occurs around 8pm every week night. Mr. E rattles the screen door and Ripley goes wild. Her tail wags so hard it carries the momentum of her hind legs so she essentially crab walks at high speed around the house, teeth chattering, waiting for him to open the door. When he does his face instantly lights up- it's only this once that I'll share that smile, the one that's meant for wives and significant others, the one that releases worries and cares in the comfort of home. He beams it at her in full force.

We meet eyes right before he does a nightly "sizing up" of the house. He's not looking at how much was put away today, or what chores I completed or what's unpacked. He's weighing which nightly decorating project he'd rather not do. I save the really important stuff for him so that when we sit down on the couch six months from now and he complains that our pictures are crooked or should be on the other wall, I can tell him that he had just as much say in it as I did. It's my ace in the hole.

Last night in particular we decided to decorate the desk- arguably one of the few areas in the house that's more "his" than "mine". He wants to decorate with action figures. I'd like to decorate with old cameras.

The issue is hanging. We suck at this like Olympic winter sports (come on, I'd rather watch the gymnastics than the skiing!).

We've tried eye-balling.

We've tried levelling.

We've tried measuring.

We've tried poking holes in paper where the approximate hooks are.

Two hours and eight taquitos later we're covered in drywall dust, smearing toothpaste all over our espresso wall cubes of varying sizes, balancing on tip toes and trying our best to reign in our tempers despite the fact that all we'd like to do is smash the damn cubes to pieces with the hammer. Oh, wait. Just me?

He's scowling and I'm swallowing "I told you so's" with a chaser of Moscato when we finally reach a consensus that you can't tell it's a tiny bit un-level anyways. We lock eyes for a second and I am reminded how incredibly lucky, blessed, and loved I am to have this man in particular by my side.

He destresses by playing a video game and I by reading and we're curled next to each other despite the heat, basking in each other's presence. I'll forget the next day is our anniversary and he'll forget to take out the trash like I asked him, but in the end it's details, details and our life is a bigger picture than we know.

Settling In

We're cramped in here, this dog and I. She has squinty sleepy eyes, blinking slowly as she settles in to her many mid-morning naps. I don't quite fit in the nook I've made myself, stretching legs into empty bookcases and leaning against packed boxes. I've worn the same outfit four days in a row- capris and a tank top- because I can't quite muster the dedication I need to tackle the bedroom closets.

The momentum I carried through the weekend of packing and moving and shifting and organizing and unpacking has finally left me. My eyes hurt as I strain to see around cardboard boxes and through plastic bins. My arms feel heavy, weighted with the burden of house and hearth. This is my arena. This is my element. Even as it encourages me to stretch my creativity, to simplify and minimize and prioritize, the sheer weight of our home is suffocating.

You know who's not suffering? Mr. E. This guy comes home full of stories and jokes and enthusiasm for his work. He tells me all about his day- his five hours in traffic, the flowers he delivered to actresses on set, the costumes and the crew and the catered lunches. He's exhausted by the time he sits down, but he's just the right amount of happy and frustrated- enough to like what he's doing but not enough to settle for it forever. He's sort of been my inspiration here.

The overall feeling in this little one bedroom apartment, smack dab in the middle of downtown Burbank, purveying the valley that nestles the city of dreams- that feeling is hope. Hope that I'll tackle this apartment. Hope that I'll find a job. Hope that everything will work out for us the way it has so far.

 

We're Alive. Barely.

Okay, more than barely, but it felt a little touch and go in the last week.

Mr. E has been busy as a bee, commuting from Orange to Burbank (85+ miles/day on our new car!) and dreading every minute. But he loves his job and he loves the people he works with, so he was happy to make the sacrifice. I've never seen him as confident and easy-going as he is now that he's in a real job.

I had three days to pack/clean the three bedroom house and boy let me tell you. My fingers felt like they were permanently twisted around a mop handle, my spine ached from carrying everything out into the garage and I never want to paint again. Ever. Please, someone hold me to this.

Thankfully all those years wasting time playing Tetris have paid off. Who said you wouldn't use video game skills in real life? I had moved all of our boxes and some furniture into the living room (unused once we moved the TV to the air conditioning) but later realized that because the first falls in the middle of the week, we couldn't actually MOVE our stuff until Saturday. Aaaand the landlord was fumigating. So it became a mad rush to move all of our things into the garage (to wait out the tenting) as well as eat ALL OF THE FOOD because we didn't have a fridge in the new place.

Spoiler alert: we made it. We're still throwing away most of our refrigerated food but you can't have everything.

And the apartment! We moved from a three-bedroom house (though we only used two bedrooms) down to a one bedroom apartment. Personally, I'm excited for the change. Mr. E and I love the location, the rooms are spacious and we're right next to downtown Burbank. Ripley? Not so much. She paced the apartment for 16 hours yesterday without stop- no sleeping, no resting. When we couldn't take it anymore we took her to the car in the hopes she would settle.

Here's the apartment (with some lovely photobombing). Can't wait to move in and decorate!

THE BEDROOM

THE HALLWAY

THE MOST AMAZING BATHROOM

FROM THE FRONT DOOR

THE DINING AREA

WE'RE COMING UP ON THE KITCHEN NOW

OH LOOK. THERE IT IS. FRIDGE-LESS.

VIEW OF KITCHEN IF YOU WERE A CREEPER

VIEW FROM THE DINING AREA

OUR ENTERTAINMENT WALL